Left to right, Scarlett Erickson, 6, Colin Erickson, 8, and Logan Erickson, 10, sit with their chickens in front of a portable community sawmill turning burned trees into lumber in Concow on Friday. (Camille von Kaenel — Enterprise-Record)

A Concow family used lumber made from their burned trees to build a “wet room” on their property, pictured Friday. (Camille von Kaenel — Enterprise-Record)

Logan Erickson, left, and Bruce Matthews, a founder of the nonprofit From the Ground Up, sit on a new portable community sawmill for burned trees in Concow on Friday. (Camille von Kaenel — Enterprise-Record)

Logan Erickson, 10, plays on stacks of lumber made from burned trees in front of a new hay barn on his family’s property in Concow on Friday. (Camille von Kaenel — Enterprise-Record)

Emilia Erickson, holding Ronin, who was born shortly after the Camp Fire, speaks about her experiences on her family’s property in Concow on Friday. (Camille von Kaenel — Enterprise-Record)

Emilia Erickson wants to get back into making goat milk products from her goats in Concow, pictured Friday. (Camille von Kaenel — Enterprise-Record)

CONCOW — Over the weekend, Chad Erickson built a small wooden deck for his family between the trailer that has been their home since the Camp Fire and a storage shed they use as a dressing room. The lumber came from the burned pine trees he felled on his property. He cut and planed them using a portable community sawmill run by a nonprofit, From the Ground Up Farms, Inc.

The project is an example of the resilience and resourcefulness that the tiny, remote community of Concow has had to tap into after the Camp Fire, which destroyed nearly every single structure and burned the mountainsides so hot that what was a forest began to look like the moon. Nine months later, some brush and seedlings are regrowing. The red dirt hills are occasionally dotted with a trailer or a tent where people have moved back.

At least a dozen other families in Concow are in line to use the portable sawmill. Many of them want to rebuild shelter before winter comes. And they want to reduce the hazard from some of the hundreds of thousands of dead and dying trees from the Camp Fire.

“It saves a lot of money. It’s more sustainable,” said Emilia Erickson, whose husband made the deck as an outdoor living room where, among other activities, the kids could watch movies projected against the trailer’s wall. “And there’s just this satisfying feeling of taking wood from your own land and building something.”

Emilia Erickson grew up in Concow, two miles from where she now lives. Like many of her neighbors, she had to rebuild her life after fire once before. In 2008, when part of the Butte Lightning Complex Fires tore through the community, she lost her home. Keepsakes from college — rugby memorabilia, Burning Man outfits — were gone.

Her husband built the young family a new house. They had three children: Logan, now 10, Colin, 8, and Scarlett, 6. The kids went to Concow Elementary School, where their mother taught science. A few years ago, the family bought two and a half acres of their own on Granite Ridge, hoping to build up a small farm there.

And then came Nov. 8, 2018. Before tearing through Paradise, the flames destroyed parts of Yankee Hill and Concow, home to around 1,000 people. Eight died here, in their homes, on roads, in their gardens. The Ericksons escaped with their chickens and goats. Around a week later, in the middle of evacuations, they rushed to the hospital for the birth of their fourth child, Ronin.

The Camp Fire was worse than anything the community had previously experienced. In the rubble of their home, the Ericksons later found the melted remains of a glass heart that had survived the 2008 fire intact.

“In 2008, I lost my young life stuff and this time I lost my family life stuff,” said Emilia Erickson. “It wasn’t just my stuff, but my kids’ stuff. And my own childhood stuff, because my baby photos at my mom’s house burned, too.”

But the cherry trees and rose bushes on their land up the hill survived. They could pump clean water from wells there. So after bouncing between emergency shelters, and with few other options left, the family went back.

“This is what I have left, and this is where my home will be,” she said.

Jenny Lowrey and Bruce Matthews, the founders of From the Ground Up Farms, Inc., also lost residences in the fire. They’re part owners at the Lake Concow Campground — where the fire left only concrete pit toilets standing — which they hope to reopen soon. Their nonprofit maintains gardens throughout the region, including Kentfield Gardens in Chico, that provide vulnerable groups with fresh food. Since the fire, they’ve poured themselves into helping Concow.

“It’s humbling to be both a fire victim and a fire helper,” said Lowrey. “Helping is easy for us to do, and there’s a lot of potential for help here.”

She’s part of a small group of other dedicated helpers. In Concow, people live off the grid with little access to resources like fresh food and medical supplies.

There are a couple of private sawmills in Concow and Paradise, but the idea for a community sawmill came about when they were driving around and talking about all the dead and dying trees that stood like sticks next to burned homes and cars.

The North Valley Community Foundation provided them with a $25,000 grant to buy the sawmill. A friend lent them a vehicle to haul logs. Jason Romer, another Concow resident who’s long partnered with Lowrey and Matthews, taught himself how to use the machine. Now he spends many hours each week volunteering with his neighbors to cut logs into finished lumber.

Some regulations limit what people are allowed to do with the lumber, which is mostly pine, but it’s already been put to practical use. Another Concow family living down the road from the Ericksons and making do with cramped trailers has built a shed to act as a bathroom and laundry room. On Friday, the sweet smell of soap cut through the dust.

Nearby, the Ericksons have built shelves for their food and gear inside of a donated storage room. And they’ve built a small barn for hay that they feed their goats. A dozen or so chickens hang out there and lay fresh eggs.

The kids like to play on the remaining stacks of lumber, some of which have burned edges. Someday, it might be used to help rebuild a new house.

“I say I’m sort of like a bowling ball, heading straight for a home,” said Emilia Erickson.

She’s juggling many projects at once: On top of caretaking and navigating the complicated rebuilding process, she’s thinking of starting a science camp and a business. She wants to sell her homemade lotions and elderberry syrup. On Friday, she gifted a small pot of the syrup to Aindy Romer, Lowrey’s daughter and another Concow neighbor.

Nine months ago, a burning vehicle trapped Romer on the winding dirt road off Granite Ridge. She hunkered down with chickens and a dog in a big house, fighting the fire with a water hose for a few days before she could get out. The house — visible through the trees from the Ericksons’ property — made it.

“We knew our neighbors before, but now we really know them,” said Aindy Romer. “We’re having to rebuild the entire life support system here.”